The present invention relates to a new and improved construction of a safety or monitoring apparatus for monitoring delayed firing cartridges or a so-called hang-fire condition in an externally powered firing weapon.
In its more particular aspects the present invention relates to a new and improved construction of a safety or monitoring apparatus for monitoring delayed or late firing or cartridges in an externally powered firing weapon and containing an ammunition feed housing in which a deflector or deflecting means, i.e. a transfer means, is displaceably mounted. When a firing delay or a hang-fire condition occurs, the deflector or deflecting means deflects, i.e. transfers, the infed cartridges into an ejection channel of the ammunition feed housing and the cartridges are then received by and remain on an endless chain.
A safety or monitoring apparatus of the aforementioned type is known, for example, from European Patent Publication No. 0,111,240, which is cognate to U.S. Pat. No. 4,550,641 granted on Nov. 5, 1985. In such apparatus the cartridges are transported into a weapon housing by means of a star or finger wheel and are pushed therein into one or more weapon barrels by means of one or more breech mechanisms. After firing the cartridges, the empty cartridge cases are extracted from the weapon barrel and ejected. When a firing delay or hang-fire condition occurs, the cartridge is no longer withdrawn from the weapon barrel and no further cartridge should be infed. The cartridges infed by the star or finger wheel are consequently no longer fed to the weapon but are returned on an endless chain. For this purpose, a deflector is positionally changed-over when a firing delay or hang-fire condition occurs in order that the cartridges are no longer transported to the weapon but remain on the endless chain.
This known deflector or deflecting means has various disadvantages, some of which are enumerated as follows:
(i) In the short time available the deflector must be pivoted through a relatively large angle.
(ii) Such a deflector possesses a relatively great mass which must be pivoted within the short time available. The pivoting through the large angle as well as the pivoting of the great mass in the short time available requires high acceleration and deceleration forces and leads to high wear.
(iii) These deflectors do not allow direct subsequent firing of the deflected cartridges. These deflected cartridges are ejected into a separate container.